Letter From Paris
Paris Kiosque - June 2003 - Volume 10, Number 6
Copyright (c) 2003 Harriet Welty-Rochefort - Used with permission.
Expatriate taxes, train tracks on the Champs-Elysées, strikes, a
philosophy café and some French advice on how to age gracefully
I often ask my husband, who I call my best editor, to read my copy before I
send it off. He always, it seems, has a pertinent comment which from time
to time saves me from disaster or enables me to make a point more clearly.
This time he read my article in utter silence - a bad sign.
"So what did you think?" I asked, using as bright a tone as I could muster.
"You've lost your sense of humor is what I think," he said. "No one's going
to relate to that stuff on taxes as seriously as you do. Lighten it up."
"Lighten it UP?" I yelled. "Are you kidding? The U.S. government wanted to
STRANGLE its overseas workeers by eliminating their tax exclusion and you
tell me to lighten up?"
"That's what I mean," he responded calmly. "You can't seem to get any
distance on this subject."
Well, dear readers. I fear my husband/editor is right so rather than
attempt to be wildly humorous which I feel is impossible, I'll be brief and
informational instead!
First of all I should assume no one knows what I'm talking about (and why
should they unless they, like I, live abroad) so I should explain why I and
several other million Americans have been seeing red in the past few weeks.
Someone in Washington got the bright idea that one way to raise money to pay
for a $350 billion tax cuts would be to eliminate the tax exclusions U.S.
workers abroad "enjoy". I put "enjoy" in quotes because we don't "enjoy"
paying taxes either - and certainly not in two countries!
The U.S., as you may know, is the only country in the world to tax its
citizens on their foreign-earned income. Although no one likes this
situation, hardly anyone suffers from it thanks to something called Section
911 which allows U.S. workers abroad to exclude from taes up to $80,000 of
their foreign earned income.
If the exclusion was eliminated, those of us who are abroad would have to
pack our bags and go back to the States. New people contemplating jobs
abroad would never be able to afford to venture outside the country!
And isolating Americans from the rest of the world is definitely not a good
idea these days. A poll conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center
showed that after the war in Iraq America is increasingly isolated from the
rest of the world.
It's no big surprise that the U.S. is seen unfavorably by most of the
Muslim world but in France and Germany the level of trust in the U.S. is
down as well: for the French, down to 45 per cent as opposed to 61 per cent
last summer and about exactly the same for the Germans. (And the bad
feelings are mutual: In the U.S. only 29 percent of Americans have a
favorable view of France and 44 percent of Germany - down from 79 and 83
percent respectively).
So what does this have to do with the tax exclusion? Simply this: we
Americans abroad are America's best representatives, its "mini-ambassadors"
if you will. In France, for example, the U.S. closed down its Cultural
Center years ago - and never replaced it. So it's up to the American writers
and actors and dancers and artists and others living in France to provide
the French a look at America which is not just the stereotypical vision of
hamburgers and cowboys.
As David Hamod, president of Intercom, a consulting firm working with
American citizens groups and American chambers of commerce around the world
wrote in an excellent article in the International Herald Tribune: "Except
for the president, no one plays a more important role in projecting a
positive image of the United States around the globe than do the more than 4
million private American residents abroad..."
Fortunately the proposed bill did not go through and all 4 million of us are
vastly relieved. But as Mr. Hamod eloquently expressed it: "...overseas
Americans are not accustomed to being targeted by their own government.
Let's hope it never happens again."
We're grateful the Senate bill didn't go through and we're grateful that in
spite of their differences over the war in Iraq at the G-8 meeting in Evian
Jacques Chirac and Georges Bush "acted like grown-ups" in the words of New
York Times reporter Elaine Sciolino.
Whew!
But then, the Americans are pragmatic and the French are known for being
philosophical so perhaps Chirac knows that this Franco-American rift is
temporary in spite of the two very different world visions the two countries
hold.
The French do indeed love philosophy - and not just at school where France
is one of the only European countries to require Philosophy as a subject in
the senior year.
No, the French love philosophy even when not forced to study it in a
classroom. Last Sunday morning my husband and I met some friends at the
Café des Phares, a café on the Place de la Bastille where every Sunday there
is a philosophical discussion led by a philosopher from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
It was hot and sunny outside but the philosophy crowd, in the number of 50
or more, remained inside (with the doors open to let some air in) huddled at
their tables, many taking notes. I could hear phrases here and there -
"illusions métaphysiques", "esclavage", "contemporain de Freud"
(metaphysical illusions, slavery, a contemporary of Freud).
One fellow grabbed the microphone and angrily yelled: "Nietsche, you died
for nothing!" He ranted for a while but it didn't look like anyone cared
very much about his diatribe and when the philosopher got the microphone
back, everyone looked relieved.
Well, it all sounded very impressive to me. When my young waiter came to our
table, I said something about how fascinating it all was.
He wiped off the table and rolled his eyes. "Plutôt une prise de tête, oui"
(that's French slang for "boring"). Now there's one young Frenchman who
doesn't relate to philosophy - but I suppose if you're waiting tables and
have to listen to all that for two hours when you'd rather be listening to
rap, it must indeed be a "prise de tête".
Still, as my Francophile friend Ron Rosbottom noted: "This is a civilised
country. Instead of going to church, they go to a café philo and sip wine."
And the good thing about the philosophy café is that you don't even have to
pretend you're listening. You can just sit there and watch the world go by.
Now that's philosophical, isn't it?
After our philosophy interlude, we strolled up the Champs-Elysées to admire
the sterling exhibition of 150 years of French trains put on by the SNCF
(national train company).
I'd seen some of the trains but last Sunday was special: in a "now you see
it, now you don't" operation, the SNCF had actually BUILT tracks for one day
use on the elegant avenue. A total of 1500 passengers boarded the "Corail
Téoz", a train which will begin service from Paris to Clermont Ferrand next
year, for an historical ride up " la plus belle avenue du monde". What a
thing to tell your grandchildren!
Meanwhile, we did a very Parisian thing and stopped into Ladurée to buy some
of their fantastic macaroons. Once you've sampled the texture and taste of a
Ladurée macaroon, whether it's lemon or chocolate or coffee or pistachio,
you'll never go elsewhere for a macaroon.
There are so many exhibitions in Paris that it's often hard to know which
ones to go to. We chose to attend an exhibition at the Centre George
Pompidou of the works of Nicolas de Staël, a Russian born painter who
committed suicide in 1955 at the age of 41.
I'd seen some of his paintings but had yet to discover others (the
exhibition presented 220 of his major drawings, paintings, and engravings)
and appreciated the wonderfully bright colors and his way of making abstract
art almost comprehensible.
As we entered one room, I held my breath. Right in front of me was a scene
of Paris, its roofs bathed in a pale pink light. No, it wasn't a de Staêl
painting. It WAS Paris seen through the windows of that room at the end of
the day with the sun setting over the city.
This is why Paris is so special: sometimes you get unexpected "double
pleasures" - the pleasure of a skillfully put together exhibition and the
pleasure of a perfect Paris evening.
The show is on until June 30.
Maurice Tubiana, the 83-year-old head of the French Academy of Medicine, has
just published a book called "Bien Vieillir" (Aging Well) in which he
maintains that early retirement is not only not a way to remain young but it
can make you prematurely older!
When you think that the entire French nation is striking because the
government has proposed pushing the retirement age up, his theory is almost
funny. Perhaps the government should hire him as a consultant!
In any case, we should all heed the sage Frenchman's advice: "On devient
vieux quand on se croit vieux." (You become old when you think you're old.")
Strikes: Here's the deal. If you're against the strikes and are a
shopkeeper, you generally keep your lips zipped up. You're not in business
to lose clients! I learned this by watching my favorite newspaper and
magazine vendor smile and skirt around politics while he chats with his
customers - who adore him because they don't know what he thinks and tant
mieux!
Well, this column gives me the opportunity to say what I think which is:
I'm fed up with strikes. Today I was out in the yard when I heard a
tremendous noise - car horns, chants, so I quickly went outside where I
found a total of about 30 people with bullhorns and a truck. Later they
will have a demonstration in front of the City Hall which I may attend for
the fun of it. Funny how few can make such a cacaphony.
But that was just a small group. The demonstrators are legion - are
hopping mad because the government is trying to deal with demographics and
they don't like their solution. Simply put, there are fewer young people to
pay for the retirements of older people - and the solution is to align the
number of years people pay pensions. For the moment, people in the public
sector pay into the pension system 37. 5 years while people in the private
sector pay into it for 40 years. The government wants everyone to pay for
40 years - and the unions and the public sector want everyone to pay 37.5
years!
So we are at a standstill. Add to this the teachers who are furious about a
project to decentralize some of the jobs in schools and you've got a lot of
unhappy people. Oh yes, I forgot, the transport workers are joining the
strikers just because they MIGHT have future problems. And for some reason
which has nothing to do with the above, the garbage collectors suddenly
decided they'd get into the act. I can't tell you how odorous the air is
with 80 degree temperatures and piles of garbage lining the streets.
I admire my newspaper vendor. You'd have to tape my mouth shut for me not
to say what I think about all this!
There's only one good thing: it can't last that long. Who would
demonstrate in July or August? They're all on vacation!
"How do they eat all that food and stay so slim" must be, along with "Are
the French anti-American?" the question I have been asked the most in all
the years I've lived in France.
In point of fact, the French body is changing. Over the past thirty years,
the French have grown 4 centimeters. French men have put on four kilos and
French women 2.
The problem is that while body size may have changed, clothing sizes have
remained the same since the 1970s.
That's why the French clothing industry is conducting a mammoth survey of
body size by means of a scanner which measures 85 different points of the
silhouette. To come up with an idea of the French morphology, the
measurements of some 10,000 men and women, from 5 to 70, are being taken so
that sizes can be better adjusted to clients needs.
So the answer to the question "How do they eat all that food and stay so
slim" might be, simply, they don't!
Ah, food. In spite of the great Franco-American rift, the New York Times
reported that the White House has held on to its French pastry chef, Roland
Mesnier, who has been "embedded" in the White House since 1980.
An American citizen for the past 24 years, Mr. Mesnier makes, among other
specialties, the gingerbread house for the White House Christmas parties.
Gingerbread houses? How American can a Frenchman get?
Tonight after going to a concert in the beautiful church of St. Séverin in
the Latin Quarter, we hailed a taxi. The bearded hefty taxi driver could
have been a wrestler but it turned out he was a classical music fan. Thus it
was that we listened to fine music as we sailed through the balmy Paris
night. "Bruckner," he said. "2nd symphony." Only in Paris...
Harriet Welty Rochefort is the author of
French Toast: An American in Paris Celebrates the Maddening Mysteries of the French and
French Fried: The Culinary Capers of an American in Paris.
French Toast was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "wise and devastatingly
funny". For world-famous chef Alain Ducasse, her second book French Fried
"in a lively and hilarious style ... gives an inside look at the world of
French cuisine and wine." Both books are published by St. Martin's Press.
Harriet is currently working on her third book about the French.
For more of Harriet's prose on Paris, and ruminations of France and the French,
she and her husband Philip have a
website.
If you've had some funny, startling, satisfying, or dismaying
food experiences in France you'd like to share,
you may contact Harriet directly at
harriet.welty@hwelty.com.
Editor's Note:
Dear Readers, while our writers are always
delighted to hear and to receive comments, both about their columns in the The Paris Kiosque,
as well as your experiences in Paris,
they are unable to answer any requests
for travel information.
Thank you for your understanding.
Your Hotel In Paris